“I’ve Been Tryin’ to Get Down — to the Heart of the Matter”

“Obscurely disappointed, as we sometimes are when the things we profess to dislike don’t happen, she looked up abruptly and smiled at him.”

Zadie Smith, On Beauty

Closure. What a strange, difficult little thing it is! It takes a lot of sitting around. It asks for a lot of forgiveness. It eats patience for breakfast, drinks up solitude at night. But mainly: It takes a lot of sitting around.

Just as I am doing right now, while wearing a man’s dress shirt that once belonged to a man to whom I once belonged. The day is promising to be loaded, with sunshine and work, and the laughter of friends whose love for me has been tested by time and loss, and by perseverance. The weekend is slow to start; but I am learning to make a daily habit out of it — forgiveness! — like brushing my teeth, then yellowing them with hard coffee, straight up. So, I’m willing to sit here — alone, for as long as it takes — until the daily dose of forgiveness finally enters into my bloodstream and gets absorbed by every rejuvenating cell in my body. And then, surely, closure can’t be too far away from here! Surely.

In this space — a vacuum of patience — I witness the little creatures of my habitual emotions. While I sit still — alone, for as long as it takes — they scramble all over my spartan joint, and climb onto a sturdy axis of an abandoned vintage carousel, then disburse again; and they make a sport out of riding past me while making funny faces. No one else has been making a use of this carousel for a while. It’s been replaced by easier, more thrilling entertainment. So, its worn-out horses and yawning lions and tamed dragons are no longer ridden by children with vivid imaginations. Their paint is now chipped away by time and weather, not by the tiny fingers of little heros awaited by their worried mothers on land. So scary, so powerful they used to be — these horses and lions and dragons — but now, they are merely complacent and fragile in their aging. Disheartening. The theme park attendant has dosed off in a glass cubicle of the carousel’s control panel: Its old tune has been his lullaby for years. Little does he know that this simple ride is now being conquered by the creatures of my habitual emotions.

And so I watch them pass: these feelings that once used to seem so big. Now, they’re just silly little hooligans, making a sport out of riding past me while making funny faces.

Here comes Anger: a hotblooded little rascal with a dire need for a haircut of his sun-kissed, messy, surfer-boy curls. He shoots me an askance glance of my future, impatient son, irritated by my habit for physical affection in public, yet who seeks it at night, in the midst of all the nightmares he’s inherited from his mother. So many times, he has tempted me to follow him onto these rides, but somewhere halfway through, he gets serious and distracted again; and begins pulling away from my routine roughing caress of his head. So now, I just sit still instead, for as long as it takes.

Denial was born a pretty girl. A very pretty girl! And as all very pretty girls, she’s gotten quickly spoilt and moody on me. She has learned to get her way, never working harder at it than fluttering of her glorious eyelashes; but oh how disappointed gets her little face when I happen to not comply! (I’m still the grown-up around here, after all; and I know what’s good for her!) So, she gets mercurial on me, pulls away and pretends that to change a course of action — was her idea in the first place. I don’t surrender to her mood swings. I’ve learned not to. And when she comes back around the next time and flutters those glorious eyelashes at me again, gently, I shoo her away — and I wave a pretend goodbye.

Here comes Fear, riding in on a mythical creature that even I, with my worship of myths, cannot identify. Fear is an orphan. Fear is messy. Fear adores chaos. I used to have a lover who reminded me of him: Very charming to make-up for the giant chip on his shoulder, he could juggle his manipulations in his sleep. And it was hard to fall in love with someone like that, but even harder to fall out of it (because I always adopt my lovers no matter how much chaos they bring, on their move-in date). So, as I watch Fear’s indifferent face pass me again and again, I wonder:

“What compassion must it take for you to finally settle down? Or must you remain unattached and unpredictable; disarmingly charming when seeking shelter but brutally messy upon your every departure?”

Fear is an orphan. Fear adores chaos. But he ain’t welcome to come around here any more!

They all used to seem so big, these creatures of my habitual emotions.But now, they’re just silly little hooligans, on this sad carousel with lullabies instead of jungles, who make a sport out of riding past me, while making funny faces. They are sort of my children, natural and adopted; and I have always had plenty of love to give them. But as all parents who get better with time, I too have learned the psychology of my children. And although my love has never lost its unconditional clause — it has gotten a lot more patient.

So, as I sit here — alone, in the vacuum of my patience, for as long as it takes — I can already feel the calmness of forgiveness entering my bloodstream. So then, surely, closure can’t be too far away from here.